Politics mixed with entertainment and laughter at the Human Rights Campaign Dinner May 3 at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta. Organizers estimated that 1,050 people attended the 21st annual event.
Keynote speaker actress Kathy Najimy told the crowd how she learned tolerance, and how to bedazzle the words across her shirt in sequins, at a gay nightclub in San Francisco.
“People ask me, Kathy, why this fight? Why do you have to be so loud?” she said, explaining that her daughter might one day grow up to be a lesbian. “I fight so one day she can get married in a real church in a real wedding.”
Featured speaker U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) rallied attendees by comparing the fight for gay rights to his own experiences as a leader in the Civil Rights Movement.
“You must never ever give up. You must never get lost in a sea of despair,” Lewis said. “You know I’ve been arrested a few times. I’ve been arrested 40 times, beaten, left bloody and unconscious during the freedom riots 47 years ago. Got a concussion at that bridge in Selma on March 7, 1965, but I didn’t give up, and you must not. Keep the faith and keep your eyes on the prize.”
The night’s politics ran heavily Democratic, as several speakers endorsed either Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama. HRC President Joe Solmonese highlighted parts of Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain’s record and said the HRC will support whoever wins the Democratic Party nomination.
“John McCain is someone who voted against the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill. He will as he has in the past will vote against the non-discrimination act. While he voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, he fully supported the ban in his home state [of Arizona] and made commercials supporting it,” he said.
Local politicians in attendance included former state Rep. Jim Martin, a Democrat trying to unseat Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.); state Sens. Nan Orrock and Kasim Reed, both Atlanta Democrats; state Reps. Karla Drenner (D-Avondale Estates), Margaret Kaiser (D-Atlanta), Stephanie Stuckey-Benfield (D-Atlanta), Douglas McKillip, (D-Athens), Mike Jacobs (R-Atlanta), Kathy Ashe (D-Midtown); Fulton County Commissioners Nancy Boxill and Robert Pitts; Atlanta City Council President Lisa Borders, Atlanta City Councilmember Anne Fauver, who is gay; and Brian Bates of the Doraville City Council, the state’s first openly gay elected Republican. Keith Gross, a gay Democrat running against Jacobs, also attended the HRC dinner.
At press time May 7, dinner organizers said they were still tallying numbers and could not release an estimate of how much the event raised for HRC’s national efforts.
“We can say we had very strong corporate support, our attendance was very consistent to what we had last year, so we consider it a successful event. But it’s far too early to say a number with any confidence," said HRC board member Lee Ann Jones.
Dinner Co-Chair Jason Lowery said $100,000 was raised through auctions at the dinner. The most expensive item in the silent auction was a trip to Shanghai, which raised $10,000.
“Personally I couldn’t have been more pleased.” Lowery said. “We’re really excited because of the state of the economy our numbers are real consistent with last year.”
The 2007 Atlanta dinner raised $315,000.
Community awards
HRC presented two awards during the dinner. The Leon Allen & Winston Johnson Community Leadership Award went to Metrotainment Cafés’ Frank Bragg, who serves as president of For the Kid in All of Us and is on the board of the Atlanta Gay Men’s chorus. Pastor Dennis A. Meredith of Tabernacle Baptist Church won the Dan Bradley Humanitarian Award.
The Tabernacle Baptist Church was predominately heterosexual until 2004, when Meredith began reaching out to gays and transgender people after one of his sons told him he was gay. His church went from predominately straight to roughly 70 percent gay and transgender.
“I have taken a tremendous hit because of my position of love and acceptance. I used to preach across the country, well that stopped when I opened my doors and began to preach what I feel is the love and acceptance of Jesus Christ,” Meredith said. “I refuse to preach what I consider to be bad Bible.”
Jordon Brooks, winner of the annual YouthPride essay contest, read her account of life as a transgender teenager.
“In classes I got teased every day. I heard everything, fag, stupid tranny, cross-dresser, freak. The worse part is I even told the teachers and they turned a blind eye. … Being a transgender teen is one of the most difficult things a person can go through,” she told the crowd.
Teacher Mary Bruce told the diners she is bound in not talking to students about being gay.
“Like many of you in this room, I deal with the fear of losing my job. Many teachers feel vulnerable of being labeled an undesirable role model, a child molester, a threat to the family,” she said. Bruce went on to say how she saw gay students bullied, harassed and watched her principal tear down signs for the Gay Straight Student alliance.
About a dozen transgender people and their allies lined up outside the Hyatt Regency to protest HRC’s support of the federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act that does not include gender identity.
Sir Jesse McNulty, who participated in the protest, said the group handed out about 400 fliers to attendees asking them to urge HRC to sign on to United ENDA, a coalition of some 300 national and local groups supporting only a trans-inclusive ENDA.
While not addressing the issue directly, HRC President Joe Solmonese talked about the failed effort to include gender identity in his speech at the dinner.
“We now have a clear sense of who we have to move to a fully inclusive bill, and in most cases, just how to get them there,” he said.
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